History timeline (prototype)

Find an event or a state, or go to a date

Try 1453, 331 BCE, 66 mya, 29 May 1453

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Drag to travel through time. Scroll or pinch to zoom, all the way out to the age of the Earth.Drag to travel through time. Use + and - to zoom.

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Credits

This is a prototype. Event summaries are written for it from the cited sources.

Borders of states, 3400 BCE to 2024: Cliopatria, Seshat Global History Databank, v0.2.1, CC BY 4.0. Simplified and reduced to name, years and area.
Coastlines, 0 to 535 million years ago: PaleoMAP PaleoCoastlines v7.2, A. T. Kocsis and C. R. Scotese, CC BY 4.0. Coastline polygons, simplified. The ancient positions of three event places come from the PaleoMAP v19o_r1c plate model in the same record.
Continents, 540 to 1000 million years ago: Merdith et al. 2021, Earth-Science Reviews, plate model v1.2.4, CC BY 4.0. Continent shapes reconstructed once with pygplates, merged and simplified.
Disputed areas: Natural Earth, 1:10m disputed areas, Public domain. Simplified; each area is marked only in the years of its record.
Today's land: Natural Earth, 1:50m land, Public domain.

Event pictures come from Wikimedia Commons and The Met, each credited under its picture.

Battle of Gaugamela: Tetradrachm of Alexander the Great, about 325 to 319 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, H. Dunscombe Colt Gift, 1978, CC0.
Machu Picchu is built: Tunic with checkerboard pattern, camelid fibre, Inca, 1400 to 1535. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Fletcher Fund, Claudia Quentin Gift, and Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 2017, CC0.
Mansa Musa's pilgrimage: Seated figure, terracotta, Middle Niger, 13th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Buckeye Trust and Mr. and Mrs. Milton F. Rosenthal Gifts, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest and Harris Brisbane Dick and Rogers Funds, 1981, CC0.
The fall of Tenochtitlan: Temple model, ceramic, Mexica, 1400 to 1521. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Arthur M. Bullowa, 1993, CC0.
The Great Pyramid of Giza: Archers, relief fragment, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 4, about 2551 to 2494 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund and Edward S. Harkness Gift, 1922, CC0.
The printing press, Mainz: Gart der Gesundheit, printed in Mainz by Peter Schoeffer, Gutenberg's former partner, 1485. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1944, CC0.
The Roman Empire at its widest: Bronze sestertius of Trajan, 103 to 111 CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1908, CC0.
Writing, Uruk: Proto-cuneiform tablet with seal impressions, about 3100 to 2900 BCE, probably from Uruk. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Raymond and Beverly Sackler Gift, 1988, CC0.

Map rendering: MapLibre GL JS (BSD-3-Clause). Typefaces: Source Serif 4 and Hanken Grotesk (SIL Open Font License).